Washington (AFP)

Airbnb, the private home sharing platform, has decided to verify the accuracy of the information on all 7 million rentals on its site by the end of 2020, after several incidents including a shooting that killed 5 people. California.

The audit should begin immediately, said one of the co-founders of the company, Brian Chesky in an email sent Wednesday to all staff.

It will have to be completed by December 15, 2020. The accuracy of the information published on the site, including the address, photos and other details as well as all that concerns the state of housing, safety and equipment promised, will be checked.

The platform undertakes, as of December 15 of this year, to relocate or refund in its entirety an Airbnb user whose rental would not be satisfactory. The company has often been criticized for not doing enough to satisfy the complaints of its customers.

- By your side -

Mr. Chesky acknowledges: "Most hosts do a great job, but customers need to feel that Airbnb is on their side, and we believe this commitment is a necessary step to reassure customers."

The boss of the platform also announced the establishment of a hotline operating 7 days 7, 24 hours on 24 which should allow to join "a real person at Airbnb anywhere in the world and at all moment".

The service will run from December 31st of this year in the United States and will be extended worldwide in the course of 2020.

To form and set up a team of employees able to respond quickly to urgent requests, Airbnb took as consultants Charles Ramsey, who led the police in Philadelphia and the capital of the United States but also the former boss of Palo Alto Police in California and President Obama's advisor, Ronald Davis.

The latest measure taken by Airbnb to reassure its 600 million users is the detection of risky rentals and especially rentals presented specifically for partying, which are now prohibited.

The ban was announced on November 2, two days after the shooting of Orinda in California, along with the increase in "manual control" of reservations reported as suspicious by the automatic risk detection system.

The woman to whom the owner of Orinda's house had left the keys had told her that she wanted to bring twelve members of her family.

Warned by neighbors of loud noises, he called the police after watching on security cameras that there were well over twelve people in the house.

In the end a hundred people were present.

Called several times for night fuss, the police were en route to the house when the shooting started.

At the end of October, Allie Conti, a journalist, published a lengthy survey on the Vice.com site, telling how she had accidentally discovered a rent scam on Airbnb and how easy it was to trick the platform and make it hard to get her to react. in case of complaint.

According to the journalist, the scam she was a victim of during a visit to Chicago before investigating involved about a hundred homes in eight cities in the United States. It consisted in attracting the barge with false rental announcements, finding an excuse to say that they were not available once the guests arrived on the spot and disappear without paying the rent.

- Not that at home -

On another front, Airbnb lost a more than symbolic battle on Tuesday when voters in Jersey City, a suburb of New York, approved tough restrictions on short-term rentals.

These rules, which include obtaining a permit and the presence of the owner on the site, should reduce the influx of visitors via the giant rental online, accused of aggravating the housing crisis, transforming quiet neighborhoods and harming the hotel sector.

The platform had gathered 20,000 signatures calling for a popular vote on the settlement, and spent several million dollars in the hope of canceling it. Airbnb has defeated the New York hotel lobby.

But this setback for Airbnb confirms the efforts of many cities - starting with major tourist metropolises such as New York, Paris, Berlin or Barcelona - to curb the activity of the platform.

© 2019 AFP